[HN Gopher] A Taping of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' Saved an Innocent...
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A Taping of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' Saved an Innocent Man from Death
Row (2017)
Author : nadermx
Score : 85 points
Date : 2024-12-25 01:49 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (innocenceproject.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (innocenceproject.org)
| fracus wrote:
| It is worrisome someone would have to prove innocence to remain
| off death row.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| I am firmly in the camp of the justice system should never
| execute anyone. It's a one way door that presumes the system is
| infallible and we've had proof after proof of cases where the
| system failed.
| whatshisface wrote:
| All sentences are a one-way door. You don't get years of your
| life back, or the skills that atrophy in jail if you had any
| before.
| immibis wrote:
| Indeed. But a death penalty can't even give you back your
| remaining ones once you're found innocent, so it's worse in
| some sense.
| gostsamo wrote:
| If you are sentenced falsely, would you liked to be killed
| or you would choose to spend some time in jail and be
| released when proved innocent?
|
| What you are giving here is really false equivalence which
| contributes absolutely nothing to the conversation.
| lazide wrote:
| Are we talking life sentences, or a year or two?
| hnlmorg wrote:
| If I have to spend 20+ years then my life as I know it is
| over because there's no way I'm coming out the same
| person that went in.
| efdee wrote:
| But you are coming out, nonetheless.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| That's not in disagreement. The question is how
| traumatised that person coming out is.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Not even sentences. I've known multiple people who have
| been incarcerated over a decade on allegations in pre-trail
| detention ("jail"). You don't need a sentence to lose years
| of your life.
| csomar wrote:
| The land of "human rights": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Res
| olutions_concerning_death_p...
| dangus wrote:
| The justice system relies on the concept of guilt beyond
| reasonable doubt. That standard doesn't mean "proved to be
| impossible to be innocent."
|
| In a system that is in a population of millions of people,
| there are bound to be edge cases where there's a lot of damning
| evidence and people look guilty who just aren't.
|
| It's one of the many arguments against capital punishment. It
| can't be undone.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| >It's one of the many arguments against capital punishment.
| It can't be undone.
|
| Neither can time spent behind bars.
| mulmen wrote:
| The time served can't be undone but the incarceration can.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| And there's little details like $320k settlements for
| wrongful imprisonment to help transition back out of
| prison... Harder when you're dead.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I've seen interviews with people how have been wrongfully
| imprisoned for extended periods and they're changed in
| irreversible ways.
|
| Some of them are unlikely to ever integrate back into
| normal society.
| hkt wrote:
| > Some of them are unlikely to ever integrate back into
| normal society.
|
| This is an indictment of the system itself. If it damages
| innocent people who are wrongfully jailed so badly, how
| can anyone ever hope it'll turn actual criminals into
| citizens?
| hnlmorg wrote:
| That's also true. Though I'd see it as a separate, albeit
| related and just as crucial, point.
| watwut wrote:
| > The justice system relies on the concept of guilt beyond
| reasonable doubt.
|
| Does it, in reality? With trials and layers being life
| destructibly expensive?
| thih9 wrote:
| More details along with a still:
| https://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved...
|
| > They had been stopped by a production assistant so as not to
| interrupt filming. But for some reason, the PA had a last-minute
| change of heart and let Juan and little Melissa walk to their
| seats -- and into the background of the show's action.
|
| > "Can you imagine had Melissa not asked for a snack?" Juan
| marveled.
|
| (...)
|
| > Juan was released, but couldn't catch a break. Due to a
| clerical error, he had to report back to county jail two days
| later. The tombs had just been rocked by racial unrest after a
| murder inside, and Juan was actually afraid "I would be killed."
|
| > Melnik had assumed it would be cleared up in 24 hours. Instead,
| Juan, a declared-innocent man, was there for two hell-filled
| weeks.
|
| > In 2007, Juan received $320,000 in a settlement of his civil
| lawsuit against the LAPD and the city of Los Angeles for false
| imprisonment, misconduct and defamation.
| nightowl_games wrote:
| What happens if you dont accept a settlement for something like
| false imprisonment?
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| a settlement just short circuits the process. Without a
| settlement, it goes to court and, depending on the
| jurisdiction and case details, decided by a judge or a jury,
| and again depending on the jurisdiction and case details,
| penalties are decided by a judge or a jury.
|
| Really it's pretty similar to criminal court with the
| exception that neither party will have a criminal charge or
| criminal judgement against them at the end of it. No one will
| go to jail.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| > They had been stopped by a production assistant so as not to
| interrupt filming. But for some reason, the PA had a last-
| minute change of heart and let Juan and little Melissa walk to
| their seats -- and into the background of the show's action.
|
| Why is a PA able to stop a ticket holder from going to their
| seats just cause a show is filming at the same time a game is
| on? Seems shitty for anyone that bought a ticket that day.
| thih9 wrote:
| I guess this was coordinated with the event organizer;
| perhaps the filming happened in a way that wouldn't interfere
| with watching the actual event; and the ticket holders were
| instructed to follow the PA's guidance.
|
| Related:
|
| > Once a friend of mine called me excitedly after she
| attended a football game in Massachusetts. There were signs
| everwhere that announced that they were filming the crowd for
| a Warner Brothers Music video and by giving your ticket for
| entry you are giving permission for your image to appear in
| this video.
|
| Source: https://www.quora.com/How-did-directors-film-scenes-
| in-packe...
| ruthmarx wrote:
| > perhaps the filming happened in a way that wouldn't
| interfere with watching the actual event;
|
| A PA being able to stop ticket holders from going back to
| their seats because they got a snack sounds like a lot of
| interference to me.
| thih9 wrote:
| Ticket holders have to follow instructions from stadium
| staff. My point was that stadium staff decided to allow
| filming - not sure why to focus on the PA at this point,
| they're likely allowed to do that.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| The focus isn't on the PA, sure they're just the hand of
| the studio. My point is that it's crappy that the studio
| allows filming to interfere with and block ticket holders
| from going to their seats.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| The title is a bit dramatic. It never got to a trial, because his
| alibi checked out.
|
| One of the factors was him walking into frame of a taping of Curb
| your Enthusiasm. The main factor was his cellphone placing him at
| that location after answering a call that pinged off a tower near
| the stadium 20mins before the murder which was 20 miles away.
| There was also footage from the stadium that showed a person in
| his seat, but resolution was not good enough to be dismissed from
| that alone. Even the shows footage did not clear him from
| charges, it was the cellphone location data.
|
| The real tragedy was the clerical error:
|
| "Due to a clerical error, he had to report back to county jail
| two days later."
|
| On the positive: "In 2007, Juan received $320,000 in a settlement
| of his civil lawsuit against the LAPD and the city of Los Angeles
| for false imprisonment, misconduct and defamation."
| shiroiushi wrote:
| It's not dramatic at all. Without proof of his innocence, it
| could very well have gone to trial and resulted in a
| conviction, thanks to people's belief in the reliability of
| "eyewitness testimony". This case alone should show just how
| useless and flimsy eyewitness testimony is.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > It's not dramatic at all.
|
| It was not the show that "saved" him; it was cellphone
| location data that got the charges dismissed. He was never on
| trial with the possibility of death row because it never got
| that far.
| kenjackson wrote:
| TV footage seems like a WAY better alibi than cell phone
| pings.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| Not when it was taped an hour and 22 minutes before the
| murder
|
| > "The discovery seemed a home run for Juan, who by then
| had been in jail over a month. Still, the prosecutor
| argued that the footage was from 9:10 p.m. -- and the
| murder had occurred at 10:32. Juan ostensibly could have
| left early, driven to the scene of the crime, and still
| had time to kill Puebla."
| whatshisface wrote:
| Somebody needs to tell them that _guilt_ is what has to
| be established beyond a reasonable doubt...
| idle_zealot wrote:
| Not true for jail; only probable cause or reasonable
| suspicion is required to lock someone up awaiting a court
| date. Which, of course, can easily ruin someone's life
| (missing work, deepening debts, the accusation itself can
| damage reputation). In this case the accused was awarded
| damages, but that's not usually how this plays out. It's
| a huge structural problem with our justice system that
| spits in the face of "innocent until proven guilty." Any
| attempt to change it though is met with backlash about
| not being sufficiently tough on crime, and letting
| dangerous criminals walking the streets, preventing our
| law enforcement from doijg their jobs, etc.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > In this case the accused was awarded damages, but
| that's not usually how this plays out.
|
| The false imprisonment & settlement had to do with the
| clerical error that had him report back to jail after
| being cleared of charges. (an ongoing problem in its own
| right)
|
| It is a completely separate issue from being locked up
| while charges were pending.
| rgavuliak wrote:
| Why would you think that? Cell phone ping data is stored
| for a good amount of time and generated by a 3rd party
| that has no involvement in the case. Of course the phone
| can be given to someone else, but it has advantages over
| suspect generated data.
| kenjackson wrote:
| The last issue you noted. There was a notorious Instagram
| page for criminals that noted this as one of the key
| things to do before committing crime -- have an
| accomplice keep your phone.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| He was in jail for a month, all because some idiot thought
| he looked like the killer. He could have gone on trial, and
| much worse, if he didn't have solid evidence _proving_ it
| wasn 't him.
|
| Countless people have been imprisoned and executed just
| because of eyewitness testimony. How many black men have
| been killed because some white person who thinks they all
| look alike said on the stand "it was him!"? Eyewitness
| testimony shouldn't even be allowed, because it's so
| unreliable.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| He was never facing death row; there was no trial for
| that to be a possibility. The unnecessary speculation of
| death row has no barring on this story.
|
| There are real cases that have made it to trial where
| your argument is better suited. He was in jail for a
| month, but not prison (there is a difference here) and
| nowhere near death row. I didn't see where the reason
| was, my guess is he could not afford bail (a separate
| problem altogether from this story). Prosecutors had
| reason to believe it was him; not only from an eye
| witness but because he had a record and had motive.
|
| >> "..Martha Puebla, who had recently testified at a
| preliminary hearing about a gang murder in which Juan's
| brother Mario was charged as an accessory. (Mario was
| convicted and is currently serving time.) Authorities
| argued that Juan -- who had been in the courtroom during
| the hearing -- had killed Puebla in retaliation for
| cooperating with police."
|
| The NYPost article hints all the drama over this case is
| for a Netflix documentary:
|
| >> "As covered in the Netflix documentary "Long Shot,"
| out Friday, Juan's innocence would ultimately rest on a
| near brush with fame -- more specifically, with Larry
| David and "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
|
| If not for the involvement of Curb Your Enthusiasm and a
| documentary, this would simply be another case that got
| dismissed from an alibi checking out and never making so
| much as a local community newsletter. Thus, the title is
| dramatic as it does not accurately summarize the truth of
| the story.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| It shows how useless and flimsy the jury system is also.
| nickff wrote:
| Please explain; the fact that a single eyewitness is
| unreliable (and I agree that they are,) does not mean that
| the consideration of a jury of one's peers would be.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| First I'd point out that people living in the same city
| as someone accused is not necessarily a peer, even if
| they are considered as such for the purposes of a jury.
| Are a bunch of subtly racist blue collar white voters the
| peer of an Oxford educated immigrant Kenyan doctor? Just
| to use a clear example.
|
| That aside, people are notoriously uninformed, and
| notoriously lack basic critical reasoning skills. Look at
| the sheer number of people who voted the way they did in
| the last US election because they incorrectly correlated
| cheaper prices with the guy who was president at the
| time.
|
| Odds are a jury is unreliable because they aren't going
| to put in the effort to properly evaluate the evidence
| and lack the knowledge and motivation to make a truly
| impartial and educated conclusion.
|
| Not to mention the way a judge will deliberately limit
| the information a Jury has access to, and not always
| ethically, such as barring mention or education about
| jury nullification being an option.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| If you think a jury is unreliable, you can opt for a
| bench trial instead. In a bench trial, a judge hears the
| evidence, determines the facts, considers the legal
| issues that arise, and decides whether a defendant is
| guilty or not guilty. There is no jury involved in a
| bench trial. Fact-finding moves from the jury's duty to
| become part of the judge's duty. Jury trial is a right as
| to shield one from being targeted by a system or
| dictatorship that is corrupt all the way down. If you
| think your peers are idiots you can waive that right and
| put the trial in the hands of a judge who does this for a
| living. Pick your poison. But at least you get options in
| the US system.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| I think judges tend to be unreliable a lot of the time as
| well. Aileen Cannon is a good example.
|
| It's true you et choices in the US system, that doesn't
| mean we can't come up with something significantly
| better.
| jliptzin wrote:
| Couldn't he have just given his cell phone to someone else that
| night?
| pmarreck wrote:
| This should be disturbing.
|
| If there is a true alibi exonerating someone, then there would
| have been no truthful evidence against him. And yet, a man
| without truthful evidence against him was almost put to death
| row. Why is that? Have we stopped caring about Blackstone's
| Formulation in our zeal to imprison everyone even possibly
| guilty?
| will5421 wrote:
| The quickest fix is to get rid of the death penalty
| nickff wrote:
| How does getting rid of the death penalty address the
| parent's concern about false imprisonment? I understand the
| philosophical and practical arguments against the death
| penalty, but getting rid of it won't forestall zealous
| prosecutors.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| well it will help to forestall the person being dead if
| exonerating evidence comes along, although anticipating
| the next question - yes, they can of course die for other
| reasons in prison, but not having any stats to back it up
| I will just state my very strong suspicion that most
| people on death row who die in prison do so because the
| death penalty was applied.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| He was not "almost put to death row". There was no trial for
| that to even be a possibility. Instead, a man without
| truthful evidence against him had the charges dismissed.
| atoav wrote:
| Aren't there cases whose innocence has been discovered
| after they have been on death row?
| 7bit wrote:
| And that's relevant how?
| atoav wrote:
| I wonder how the fact that many innocent people _do_ land
| in death row is relevant in the discussion about one case
| where someone didn 't.
|
| Seriously tho, of course this is relevant. Either your
| authorities have extremely high confidence, beyond even
| unreasonable doubt proof or they don't. These are cases
| where people who didn't do it came close to the danger of
| being wrongfully executed by the state. If anything, this
| is a damning data point on how bad the executive and the
| judicial system are at only prosecuting when they have
| the proof. In fact it looks a lot like they will just
| take anybody who is remotely likely to have done it.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| Yes, but that is not this case.
| mixdup wrote:
| Yes, but, the case was only dismissed when he had a
| positive alibi against the charges, when the charges should
| only happen when there is positive evidence against him
| tjwebbnorfolk wrote:
| The innocence project has an interest in showing the justice
| system to be more capricious and random than it really is.
| The guy was exculpated by the evidence, and the system worked
| as intended.
|
| Yes it has problems but the headline and story are obscuring
| what really happened here. The guy was nowhere near death
| row.
| RevEng wrote:
| But only because of a pure fluke. If not for that
| extraordinary evidence, would they have been exonerated?
| I'm not saying justice is useless and broken (at least not
| in this way), but innocent people being found guilty on
| insufficient evidence does happen and far more often than
| people would think. It's a serious problem that needs to be
| addressed, but the people it happens to are usually the
| kind of people who others are already biased against and
| are unlikely to want to help, e.g the poor, drug addicts,
| and minorities.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| Cellphone location data is not extraordinary evidence, he
| was not cleared based on walking into frame of the show
| as it was taped and hour and 22 minutes before the
| murder; giving him time to still do it. It was his
| girlfriend calling him 20 minutes before the murder
| placing him at the stadium.
|
| He also had a strong motive as the victim testified
| against his brother in an unrelated gang murder in which
| he attended and his brother is serving time for. He also
| had a record and an eye witness (found later to be wrong)
| giving a description that could have been him. Add it all
| together and it was not about a poor minority being
| targeted by the system. The due process worked here.
| There is nothing extraordinary about this particular case
| --except--as promotion for a Netflix documentary that was
| promoted in the NYPost article:
|
| "As covered in the Netflix documentary "Long Shot," out
| Friday, Juan's innocence would ultimately rest on a near
| brush with fame -- more specifically, with Larry David
| and "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
|
| The real injustice is how "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is
| taking the spot light from a very real problem that was
| exposed here. The "clerical error" that had him sit in
| jail for 2 weeks after being cleared of charges. He won a
| settlement, but it never should have happened and is a
| larger problem facing the poor, drug addicts, and
| minorities, wrt the system.
|
| I am somewhat surprised so many are skipping over this
| very real issue present in this very story for virtue
| signaling over death row that has nothing to do with this
| story other than unfounded speculation.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > If there is a true alibi exonerating someone, then there
| would have been no truthful evidence against him.
|
| You mistake evidence for proof. Evidence is stuff like a
| witness that saw someone similar at the crime scene, a
| motive, the accused's DNA at the crime scene (left there
| before the crime, e.g. during a benign visit), an injury that
| could have been sustained during the struggle that led to a
| murder (but was actually sustained in an unrelated bar
| fight..), owned the same kind of unusual knife the victim was
| stabbed with (but lost it the night of the murder), etc. It
| _suggests_ guilt, but leaves room for doubt.
|
| If 'truthful evidence' only existed against the guilty, then
| the single tiniest bit of evidence would be enough to
| convict.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I was helping with a murder case, it was a little over five
| years since the crime, and the defendant asked me if I knew if
| there was a way to get cellphone location data as he said he
| had left the scene of the crime about an hour before the
| incident was held to happen, and returned about an hour
| afterwards.
|
| Nobody had thought to get this data before. I called Verizon
| but I was told they only hold location data for five years and
| had already erased it.
|
| For other reasons I believe the defendant to be innocent. He
| was put to trial three times for the crime; his first two
| guilty verdicts were overturned on appeal before he plead
| guilty to the minimum to get the process over with and have a
| near release date.
| tantalor wrote:
| Good lord, they keep 5 years of location data!? That's
| excessive.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Pretty sure it's a legal requirement. In large part for the
| purpose of proving/disproving crime.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| Should call up the spooks -they probably keep it forever.
| lockemx wrote:
| It was actually a very disturbing case because of police
| misconduct. Watch the documentary. They built a strong case out
| of nothing, and they were never punished. So, it's really a
| story about technology advancing and professionals going above
| and beyond to help this guy escape what had become a guilty
| until proven innocent case.
| jdenning wrote:
| It really sounds like the prosecution had exactly zero evidence
| that this man was guilty, but determined to prosecute him anyway,
| rather than "lose". Disgusting.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Unfortunately this is quite common in some legal jurisdictions.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| This, IMHO, is the biggest argument against the death penalty.
| "Gung-ho" prosecutors with eyes on the political ladder will
| always call for the death penalty to further their career.
|
| End it and lock them up for life. You can always release them if
| new evidence comes to light that proves their innocence. You
| can't bring back to life someone who's been executed.
|
| We haven't sent anyone to the gallows since the 1960s. The EU
| doesn't either.
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